Home > Work > Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
41 " THINK OUT LOUD is a mechanism for CONTROL because when I heard what my watch officers were thinking, it made it much easier for me to keep my mouth shut and let them execute their plans. "
― L. David Marquet , Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
42 " We realized that resilience and effectiveness sometimes meant questioning orders. "
43 " It didn’t matter how smart my plan was if the team couldn’t execute it! It was a lesson that would serve me well. "
44 " I felt I was at my best when given specific goals but broad latitude in how to accomplish them. "
45 " I was disturbed by the close coupling of the technical competence of the leader with the performance of the organization. "
46 " Control Find the genetic code for control and rewrite it. Act your way to new thinking. Short, early conversations make efficient work. Use “I intend to . . .” to turn passive followers into active leaders. Resist the urge to provide solutions. Eliminate top-down monitoring systems. Think out loud (both superiors and subordinates). Embrace the inspectors. Competence Take deliberate action. We learn (everywhere, all the time). Don’t brief, certify. Continually and consistently repeat the message. Specify goals, not methods. Clarity Achieve excellence, don’t just avoid errors. Build trust and take care of your people. Use your legacy for inspiration. Use guiding principles for decision criteria. Use immediate recognition to reinforce desired behaviors. Begin with the end in mind. Encourage a questioning attitude over blind obedience. It’s my hope that this organization of the mechanisms in this book will help you put these ideas into action as you adopt the leader-leader philosophy. "
47 " Guiding principles have to accurately represent the principles of the real organization, not the imagined organization. Falseness in what the organization is about results in problems. Since these are a set of criteria that employees will use when they make decisions, decisions won’t be aligned to the organization’s goals. "
48 " I concluded that competence could not rest solely with the leader. It had to run throughout the entire organization. "
49 " as authority is delegated, technical knowledge at all levels takes on a greater importance. There is an extra burden for technical competence. "
50 " Don’t preach and hope for ownership; implement mechanisms that actually give ownership. Eliminating the tickler did that for us. Eliminating top-down monitoring systems will do it for you. I’m not talking about eliminating data collection and measuring processes that simply report conditions without judgment. Those are important as they “make the invisible visible.” What you want to avoid are the systems whereby senior personnel are determining what junior personnel should be doing. "
51 " If all you need your people to do is follow orders, it isn’t important that they understand what you are trying to accomplish. "
52 " We let our administrative processes get in the way of prompt recognition. Many times we would submit awards three months prior to the departure of a sailor, only to find ourselves calling during the last week to track down the award before his departure. When I say immediate recognition, I mean immediate. Not thirty days. Not thirty minutes. Immediate. "
53 " Are any of your employees on the brink of going AWOL because they’re overworked and underappreciated? When is it right for the leader to overturn protocol in the effort to rescue a single stressed-out subordinate? What messages do you need to keep repeating in your business to make sure your management team doesn’t take care of themselves first, to the neglect of their teams? "
54 " How can you simplify your guiding principles so that everyone in your organization understands them? How will you communicate your principles to others? Are your guiding principles referenced in evaluations and performance awards? Are your guiding principles useful to employees as decision-making criteria? Do your guiding principles serve as decision-making criteria for your people? Do you know your own guiding principles? Do others know them? "
55 " The practice outweighs the rhetoric. In "
56 " Do you have a recognition and rewards system in place that allows you to immediately applaud top performers? How can you create scoring systems that immediately reward employees for the behaviors you want? Have you seen evidence of “gamification” in your workplace? Perhaps it’s worth reading one of Gabe Zichermann’s blog posts and discussing it with your management team. "
57 " Just because we were certified and deployed didn’t mean we stopped running casualty drills. "
58 " It might seem like a little thing, but on board a nuclear submarine, little things like lack of punctuality are indicative of much, much bigger problems. At this particular meeting, everyone was waiting for someone else. "
59 " Back in Pearl Harbor, we visited the USS Bowfin submarine museum and called it officer training. I was worried that the crew would think some of these things tacky, but that wasn’t the case. It helped provide organizational clarity into what we were about—the why for our service. USE YOUR LEGACY FOR INSPIRATION is a mechanism for CLARITY. "
60 " Are you aware that you turned in a blank sheet?” “Yes sir, I am.” “Well, don’t you think that you as the commander have an obligation to create a vision for your command?” It was more of a statement than a question. “No, I feel that my job as the commander is to tap into the existing energy of the command, discover the strengths, and remove barriers to further progress. "